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Once I’d finished tidying, I glanced at the clock and blinked. Max had been gone half an hour. It seemed excessive to get coffee.
Anxiety crept along my nerves.
Why had Olga shoved us into the panic room yesterday? Kirill hadn’t explained, and lovestruck me hadn’t pushed for an explanation.
The strange darkness around him last night had swallowed all my questions.
I went to the front door, cursing Max. Why hadn’t he come back? I wished I had his number to ask him to bring me tampons.
Deciding to take charge and get one of the other guards outside to call Max, I knocked insistently on the heavy front door until someone opened it. Four pairs of eyes immediately trained on me. The security guards were standing around the door while another made his way over from the elevator.
“Is Max back yet?” I asked, feeling bad I didn’t know their names.
“Not yet.”
“Can you call him for me?”
My eyes collided with the fifth security guard, striding across the hallway with a meaningful step. There was something vaguely familiar about his walk, like a predator approaching prey. He reminded me of Kirill. He was wearing sunglasses, which was weird as it was raining outside. As I thought it, he reached up and pulled them off.I had no time to speak as recognition slammed into me. Time slowed as he pulled a long pistol with a silencer from his jacket.
Nikolai Chernov took aim at the backs of the other guards, who were still watching me, waiting for me to go inside. I raised my hand to point, but he’d already fired three times. The fourth guard turned as a silent bullet ripped through the side of his head. Blood sprayed my face, obscenely hot and wet.
I stepped back, my reaction dulled by shock. I tried to slam the door closed, but one of the security guards had fallen in the gap.
“Mallory, you’ve made this considerably easier than I expected. Well done, sweetheart,” Nikolai said, stepping over the guards like they were trash on the street.
I turned and ran, darting down the hall toward my bedroom and the panic room. I heard Nikolai behind me, his feet much faster than mine.
I slammed through the bedroom door and ran full pelt for the wardrobe.I nearly made it. I was reaching for the panic room door when he grabbed me roughly, his fingers digging in as he hauled me back and used my momentum to throw me to the ground beside the bed. I scrambled back and eyed him warily, ignoring the throbbing in the arm I’d landed on.
“Now, Mallory, let’s not get this thing started on the wrong foot.”
“This thing?” I repeated, my eyes fixed on the gun.
Nikolai grinned. He was terrifyingly cool and collected as if shooting four men dead in the space of a minute was a daily occurrence.
“Our trip,” he said quietly.
I waited for him to continue, wetting my lips, and trying to find my voice.“We’re going somewhere? Does Kirill know?”
Nikolai laughed. It was jarring because he was so frighteningly charismatic that even his laugh was magnetic. But he was a killer, and his good mood frightened me.
“He will soon, but we’ll be long gone by then.”
He stood suddenly, and I cringed away. He held out a hand for me, waiting patiently as I blinked up at him.
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” I said plainly.
“I don’t care. You’re coming with me, whether you want to or not. The only thing you get to decide is how hurt you are when we leave here,” Nikolai said with cold detachment. He snapped his fingers before my dazed eyes. “Let’s go. We’re burning daylight, and we have a road trip. Say goodbye to this place. You won’t be coming back.”
He pulled me up and placed his gun to my temple. “Walk.”
I started forward, terror jumping under my skin. Nikolai was taking me somewhere, and I had no idea where and no way to tell Kirill.
His words from before rang in my head like a scream.
“Just wait for me.”
For the second time in my life, I couldn’t keep that promise.
